The Palestinians' Uncivil War - by Khaled Abu Toameh -
The Palestinians' major ruling groups, Fatah and Hamas, are now saying they are done with each other: that the divorce is final.
Recent days and weeks have witnessed the two groups maligning each other beyond anything previously seen. Fatah and Hamas have reached a new level of mutual loathing. At times, it even seems as if Fatah and Hamas hate each other more than they hate Israel.
Many in the West say they would like to see Israel and the Palestinians return to the negotiating table. They want Israelis and Palestinians to resume the so-called peace process. They are hoping that Israel and the Palestinians will manage to reach a historic agreement that would end the Israeli-Arab conflict and bring real peace to the Middle East.
The region, however, does not need a "peace process" between Israel and the Palestinians. It needs one of a different type. The "peace process" that the Middle East is crying out for is one between Palestinians and Palestinians, one that would end their bloody, internecine war.
Before pushing "peace" upon Israel and the Palestinians, it would be helpful if the international community first tried to help the Palestinians stop torturing each other. The Palestinians cannot make peace with Israel while they are busy killing their own people. The Palestinians cannot make peace with Israel when their leaders lead only themselves -- to money and power.
The political struggle between Fatah and Hamas is not a normal dispute between two rival parties in parliament. Rather, it is a rivalry between two large groups and governments that have tens of thousands of armed men at their disposal and massive arsenals of weapons.
The biggest losers from this internal bloodletting are the Palestinians living under these leaders in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Fatah, the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), is the dominant party that controls the PA. The PA has tens of thousands of policemen and security officers (in the West Bank) who are funded and trained by various Western countries, including the US and UK.
Similarly, Hamas has thousands of security officers and militiamen who help it maintain a tight grip on the Gaza Strip.
In 2007, two years after the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Hamas overthrew the PA regime in Gaza. Since then, Hamas has been the unchallenged ruler of the Gaza Strip, home to nearly two million Palestinians. It took Hamas less than a week to remove Abbas's government from power and seize control of the entire coastal territory.
The dispute between Hamas and Fatah is not over who will bring democracy and a better economy to the Palestinians. Let us make this clear: they are not fighting over who will improve the living conditions of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by building new schools and hospitals. They are not fighting over who will introduce major reforms to the Palestinian government and end financial and administrative corruption. They are not fighting over the need for freedom of expression and a free media.
Instead, this is a struggle over money, power and ego.
The Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, are furious with Hamas because it forced them out of the Gaza Strip 11 years ago. Abbas and his senior aides and advisers have yet to overcome the deep humiliation they suffered when Hamas militiamen overthrew their regime in the Gaza Strip and killed several PA and Fatah men. Abbas seeks to shame his rivals in Hamas. He seems to want Hamas to pay a steep price for expelling him and his regime from the Gaza Strip.
Abbas is also apparently disturbed because Hamas defeated his Fatah loyalists in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections. The result of that vote, too, was humiliating for Abbas and his regime.
Last year, in the context of his hitherto unsuccessful effort to undermine Hamas and end its rule over the Gaza Strip, Abbas imposed a series of sanctions that included the suspension of salaries to thousands of civil servants living there. Abbas also stopped paying Israel for the fuel and electricity it had been supplying to the residents of the Gaza Strip.
These punitive measures, however, have backfired, further undermining Abbas's credibility among his people. He is now being accused by many Palestinians of being fully responsible for the suffering and misery of his people in the Gaza Strip. He is being accused of imposing a blockade on his own people and of being an Israeli "collaborator" for conducting security coordination with the Israeli security forces in the West Bank.
Hamas leaders have also called for bringing Abbas to trial on charges of "high treason" -- a crime, according to Palestinian laws and traditions, punishable by death.
Hamas says that Abbas is a dictator and traitor because of his refusal to share power with anyone and his "close relations" with Israel. Hamas leaders never fail to broadcast that Abbas's four-year term in office expired in January 2009. Abbas, the Hamas leaders correctly argue, is not a rightful or legitimate president. If Abbas were to sign a deal with Israel, people could come along later and say that he lacked the legal authority to do so; they would be right.
Recently, Hamas has been condemning Abbas for his decision to dissolve the Palestinian parliament, which, in any event, has been inoperative since Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip. This decision, according to Hamas, proves that Abbas is an autocrat and dictator, who presides over an authoritarian regime.
Hamas also claims that Abbas is a traitor because his security forces conduct security coordination with Israel and continue to arrest scores of Hamas supporters in the West Bank.
Abbas, for his part, has made similar charges against Hamas. He recently hinted that Hamas was working for Israel. Abbas, in a speech, referred to Hamas as "spies" (he used the Arabic word jasous) -- the word Palestinians use to label Palestinians accused or suspected of collaborating with Israel.
Hamas officials have responded by likening Abbas to Hamid Karzai, the former president of Afghanistan who came to power with the help of the US and Western countries. What they are saying is that Abbas is a puppet in the hands of Israel and the US.
Abbas was expressing outrage over the recent detention of some 500 of his loyalists in the Gaza Strip at the hands of Hamas. The men were reportedly rounded up by Hamas because they were planning to hold a big rally to celebrate the 54th anniversary of the launching of Fatah's first armed attack against Israel.
Abbas and his advisers have, in turn, repeatedly accused Hamas of being in collusion with the US and Israel to create a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip. According to Abbas and his representatives, US President Donald Trump's administration and Israel are working to establish a small and isolated Palestinian state there, thus permanently detaching it from the West Bank.
Fatah leaders are now saying that they have cut off contact with Hamas -- permanently. Hamas leaders, similarly, are saying that as long as Abbas remains in power, the dispute with Fatah will continue.
The leaders of Hamas and Fatah are making their mutual distrust unmistakably clear. They probably have good reason to believe that their suspicions are not misplaced; after all, they know each other better than anyone else does. If they are right, what is the point of presenting any peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians? Who is Israel supposed to make peace with? With the discredited 83-year-old Abbas, who will never be able to win the backing of a majority of his people for any peace agreement with Israel? Or with Hamas, which forever informs the world that it will never make peace with Israel because it cannot accept the presence of non-Muslims on what it perceives to be Muslim-owned land?
In order for any peace process to move forward, the Palestinians first need to stop attacking each other. Then, they need to come up with new leaders who actually give a damn about their people. As these two conditions seem rather unrealistic at this point, any talk about the resumption of an Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" sounds like nothing so much as a big joke.
Palestinians: While Abbas and Hamas were Hurling Insults at Each Other... - by Khaled Abu Toameh -
It has been another tragic year for Palestinians living in Syria, but the international community, including pro-Palestinian advocacy groups and mainstream media in the West, seem to have missed the misery.
The latest reports from Syria reveal that 82 Palestinians have died as a result of brutal torture in prisons run by the Syrian government in 2018. The report states that a total of 556 Palestinians have been tortured to death while being held in various Syrian prisons the past few years.
According to the Action Group for Palestinians of Syria (AGPS), a human rights watchdog organization that was established to monitor the situation of Palestinian refugees in war-torn Syria, the real number of the Palestinians tortured to death could be higher: those are just the ones they know about; the Syrian authorities do not provide any details about detainees. In addition, AGPS pointed out, the families of the victims are afraid to announce the deaths of their sons and daughters for fear of being targeted by the Syrian authorities.
AGPS says that according to its research, there are at least 1,711 Palestinians being held in Syrian prisons.
In September 2018, AGPS reported that Marwan Mustafa Judeh and his brother, Muhieddin, had died under torture while being held in Syrian detention. The two, who are from the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus, were arrested by the Syrian authorities in 2013.
Another recent victim of torture was Oday Sabri al-Hilu, 22, arrested by the Syrian authorities in 2104 while trying to leave Yarmouk. Hilu's mother is Syrian, while his father is originally from the Gaza Strip. The family has been living in the Yarmouk camp for several years. Al-Hilu's death was reported in September 2018.
Also in September 2018, AGPS reported that Mohammed Dib Abu al-Ruz, a Palestinian singer and political activist who had been arrested by the Syrian authorities in 2013, had also died as a result of torture.
A month earlier, four members of the Palestinian Elayan clan were also said to have been tortured to death while being held in detention in Syrian prison. The four men, who were separately arrested in 2013 and 2014, were identified as Seif al-Din, 49, Mohammed, 47 and his son, Ezaddin, 25, and Ali, 32. The men's families learned about the deaths when they went to check with the Syrian Ministry of Interior about the fate of their sons.
During the same month, the family of Issam Mustafa Shehadeh learned from other Palestinians that their son, who was being held in Syrian prison, had died after being tortured by his Syrian interrogators. Shehadeh was from the Dara'a refugee camp in southern Syria.
The list of names of Palestinian victims of torture goes on and on. The plight of the Palestinians in Syria is not difficult to fathom. What is difficult to fathom is: Where are the international media when those Palestinians are being brutalized?
Since the beginning of the civil war in Syria eight years ago, 3,911 Palestinians have been killed there, according to the latest figures provided by AGPS and other Palestinian human rights groups.
All these numbers may not be of any interest to the international community because the plight of the Palestinians in Syria is not related to Israel. The Palestinians who are being killed and tortured and displaced in Syria receive zero coverage in the mainstream media in the West. The United Nations and other international agencies seem to be totally unbothered by what is happening with the Palestinians living not only in Syria, but also in other Arab countries.
A Palestinian who is shot by Israeli soldiers during a demonstration in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, by contrast, will attract the instant ferocious attention of the international media. Many reporters prefer a story where they can point an accusatory finger at Israel than one that blames an Arab government or president. Stories that rip into Israel go viral on social media and earn their authors appreciation and praise. A story that is critical of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas or most Arab governments, however, will be dismissed as "Jewish propaganda" and its author labeled a traitor, a collaborator or on the payroll of the Jewish or Zionist lobby.
One can make up excuses for the apathy of the international community toward the atrocities the Palestinians are facing in Syria. However, the indifference of Palestinian leaders to the suffering of their own people is harder to justify. It is as if Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip live on a different planet -- as though the people who are being tortured to death and displaced and wounded in Syria were not Palestinian at all.
Why, though, should Palestinian leaders care when they are busy fighting each other?
When was the last time a Palestinian leader in the West Bank or Gaza Strip seriously addressed the tragedy of his people in Syria? The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank does not care about the Palestinians living in Syria. Palestinian leaders do not even seem to care about their people in the Gaza Strip. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has imposed a series of punitive measures against the coastal territory that have further aggravated the economic crisis there. These measures include halting payment of salaries to thousands of Palestinian employees and needy families.
The Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip care only about keeping themselves in power. Their main objective is to maintain a tight grip on the Gaza Strip and prevent Abbas and his PA from ever returning there. The 3,911 Palestinians who died in Syria in the past eight years were no more to Hamas than a blip on the radar -- if that.
For Hamas, life is about fighting Abbas and his ruling Fatah faction -- and bringing Israel to its knees. Similarly, Abbas lives to bring about the collapse of Hamas, while also isolating and delegitimizing Israel in the international arena.
While Palestinians were being killed and tortured in Syria, Abbas and Hamas were busy hurling insults at each other.
Perhaps Abbas's social calendar does not permit him to hear about the suffering of his people in Syria. As the reports about the Palestinian victims were emerging, Abbas was in Cairo socializing with famous Egyptian actors and actresses. He even found time to visit one of them, Nadia Lutfi, in hospital. Scores of Palestinians who are being treated in the same and nearby hospitals in Cairo would have been happy to have received his visit. Where was he?
Abbas is punishing Hamas and Hamas is threatening Abbas. All the while, Palestinians in Syria are dying daily. Will Abbas and Hamas ever utter critical words about the Syrian leadership or any other Arabs who mistreat and murder Palestinians? Not likely. Abbas and Hamas remain silent about the suffering of their people, while the world also yawns.
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